It's the end of the line for Jaws at Universal

Universal Studios guests line up to have pictures made with… (Photo by Dewayne Bevil )

January 2, 2012|By Dewayne Bevil, Orlando Sentinel

The mechanical sharks of the Jaws ride are swimming their final laps at Universal Studios theme park Monday. Universal Orlando announced last month that the iconic attraction, tied to the 1975 Steven Spielberg blockbuster film "Jaws," would close and a new — but unidentified — attraction would be built in its place.

Former Universal Orlando employee Camden Gonzalez said he was "flabbergasted" when he heard Jaws was closing, particularly with such little warning.

"At the same time, I knew it was coming one day," said Gonzalez, an Orlando native who lives in Washington, D.C.

He worked as a skipper on the attraction for about a year, he said, and enjoyed the interaction with park guests.

"The ride is not the ride without the skipper," Gonzalez said.

The ride first gained infamy for repeated malfunction during the park's grand opening in July 1990. It sputtered for a few months before being shuttered. It was retooled and revived with Spielberg on hand for the re-opening in 1993.

In the attraction's storyline, guests go on a guided cruise designed to tour locations of a famed shark attack made famous in a movie. The adventure includes a confused, sometimes-comical skipper wearing jorts, plus grenades, a wall of fire, a darkened boathouse, a high-voltage scene, a series of splashes and sneaky shark attacks.

Outside the attration is a large, captured shark on display, which has served as a prime photo op for tourists for two decades. The queue area represents a series of boathouses for Captain Jake's Amity Boat Tours. The Jaws ride is located in the theme park's Amity area, also set to be incorporated into Universal's new attraction.

Adam LeBlanc and his wife, Molly, waited in line for a final photo, a routine he said he had had since childhood.

"You always get one in front of the shark," he said.

The end of Jaws leaves Universal Studios with one major attraction remaining from the park's opening — the E.T. Adventure, also based on a Spielberg movie.

"This has been a classic from the get-go," said Robbie Gomez, who visited Universal with his friend, Philip Klein, on Monday. Gomez bemoaned that Universal was losing part of its history.

"It's like cutting down the roots from the tree," he said.

"I'm very disappointed," Klein said. Riding Jaws was a key part of his regular routine when visiting Universal, he said. "What are we going to do now?"

The closure is "to make room for what will be an exciting new attraction experience," Universal spokesman Tom Schroder said last month.

Mere days after announcing that Jaws would be replaced, Universal announced it would be expanding its wildly popular Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, setting off a new round of rumors among theme-park fans that the J.K. Rowling work would be seeping into the Studios — not merely increasing its original footprint in neighboring Islands of Adventure. A report by the Theme Park Insider website this weekend said plans for the Potter expansion at Universal Studios would include a massive ride based on Gringotts, a bank run by goblins in the Potter books and movies.

Universal, however, has not revealed details about its expansion, including its location, coming attractions or completion date. The company does not comment on rumors or speculation, Schroder said Sunday.

But there were plenty of believers at Universal on Monday, including Gomez, who said he had seen some of the alleged plans on the Internet.